It takes an autocrat like Prince Charles to get things done

Until last weekend my closest encounter with Prince Charles had been more than 50 years ago. Along with hundreds of other Cambridge students he and I were inspired by George Steiner, a lecturer whose canvas was really the whole of human experience. A stirring speaker (I remember thrilling to “the anarchic mystery of the human soul”), his lecture series packed the hall with undergraduates, so of course was sneered at by fellow academics.

Charles would arrive on a bike, followed, in stately procession, by two hefty security men, pedalling in V-formation just behind his right and left shoulders, giving the appearance of a flight of bicycling ducks. It made the young prince an easy target for any sniper.